Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

The recent 'survey' on teacher suitability was a joke and a half, but it makes for some interesting language analysis. Practically 90% of those questions were loaded questions, that is they contained embedded stereotypes and presuppositions about EFL teachers.

It's easy to tell from those 'questions' what the presuppositions are.

But when we conduct our classes, without thinking about it, could we also be making or asking loaded questions? If so, what are the implications?

Consider a few innocent questions we may have asked our students at the beginning of class:

(1) Where did you go for your holidays?
(2) How was your weekend?

The presupposition here is that the students do fun things on their holidays and weekends, and they enjoy themselves and want to talk about it. In the school I teach at, this is obviously not the case. Students are bogged down with homework in their 'spare' time, and most have never left their hometowns.

(3) Are you going to answer the question or not?

Here is more obvious, that the student isn't talking and the presupposition is that he should respond. Further, we assume he doesn't understand, so we ask the question more slowly. It may be that he understands very well, but is processing and answer and/or doesn't want to lose face.

This is just a sampling. Can anyone else offer more analysis on the types of loaded questions we may be asking, and how to deal with that?

Steve

[Lanza-Armonia]

Steve. You've way to much on your



LA

[shmooj]

Tape record yourself teaching a class.

At home, get a fly swat and start playing the tape back. Each time yourself saying something that makes you cringe, smack yourself hard in the face with the fly swat.

Continue this with weekly taped observations.

Behaviourism at its best: You'll see a rapid decrease in inane questions in no time.

Actually, more seriously, it is incredible what we say unconsciously in the classroom. I have been amazed to see/hear myself on tape sometimes. I'm sitting there thinking "Why, oh, why did I do/say that???"

[Will.]

It is amazing the stuff that can be called teaching when you play back and analyse your lesson with another teacher. That is the creative bit of teaching. Going over A CLL tape with students is fun , going over a recording of your own lesson with someone else.............

[waxwing]

I recently had an amusing moment, rather pertinent. I was explaining to the students the difference between 'open' and 'closed' questions (we had a lesson about job interviews), which I suppose corresponds quite closely to the 'Yes/No vs Wh' thing we teach them for grammatical purposes.
I tried to think of an example of a really bad teacher question. The example that popped into my head was 'Do you understand?' - the classically useless closed question.
I explained that in my PGCE etc. etc. I had been thoroughly trained in the correct formation of questions to students. I was full of it.

In the remaining half hour of the lesson I must have asked 'Do you understand?' at least six times. Only one student seemed to notice, and we shared the joke, me rather .

Sometimes I hate being reminded how bad I am at this...

[4nic8r]

I'm curious about something...

Everything that you learned in your PGCE or MA's in teaching... do you find that while in theory it would work and you try to make it work, but when you are actually in the classroom it gets all thrown out the window?

[shmooj]

Eh...

Not at all... in fact, what I learned on my MA was based on research of what actually took place in the classroom.

Do you have something in mind...?

[Teacher Lindsay]

struelle

[waxwing]

[4nic8r]

smooj..

My question related to how much do students accept the theories put into practice. For example, while teaching at a public school/university, I agree it's much easier to implement teaching theories in the class, but at institutes, I think it would be more difficult. (I'm not just talking about basic TPR methods)

I guess the way I should have put it would be when you try to apply 2nd language acquistion theories (like Krashen's or Spolsky's) i.e. trying to get the students to interact with the foreign culture, has there been any difficulties? Like trying to get the entire class to talk in English for the whole time, or as in the case of Korea (I see you're from Seoul), to get most of your students to motivated, because either lack of interest in English, or lack of time because of preparing for exams.

I think doing some post grad classes in Edcuation or TESL is a good idea and helps you to become a better teacher, but I think sometimes in Asia, the way their systems are, it's tough to implement a lot of the time.

Just curious is why I asked....

[shmooj]

[4nic8r]

Shmooj,

Thanks for your in depth reply. Sounds like your on the right track with what goes in on the classroom.

One thing I've noticed is that motivation is a key factor in 2nd language learning. A lot of the responsibility lies on the teacher, and I think that a lot of teacher's put the false blame on students for the failures. Now, in all cases of course this is not true, but some teacher's who do zero prep time and let the class run wild then complain about their students need to accept their own shortcomings as to why there lessons are unsuccesful. Also, by not judging the appropriate levels of the class, or trying to at least assimilate to the students your are teaching's culture, there are going to be some problems.

Case in point, I knew of a teacher who would bring in Time magazine articles to teach kids who could barely form sentences, and was pissed that they couldn't hold conversations. Then, after we told him to make it easier, he would constantly write negative questions about the country and try to have them explain why their culture and society was so messed up. Also, he just let most students sleep in his class, and would only focus one the one or two kids who could actually speak something...

Suffice to say.. he's not teaching at that school anymore...

[Teacher Lindsay]

4nic8r

[johnslat]

Dear Teacher_Lindsay,

[guest of Japan]

Wow, that was an 84 word sentence. Is it obvious that I have too much time on my hands?